There are allegations on some websites that this maneouver (passing very close to the east coast of Giglio) was regularly performed by Costa ships to 'show off' the ship to the Island and the Island to the ship.

Can anyone access any historic AIS tracks for the Concordia or other Costa ships to prove whether this has indeed happened before?

If it has, then it is not just the Captain and bridge crew of the Concordia who must take the blame, in my view.

It is tragic - and deeply ironic - if this is true in the year of the 100th anniversary of the "Titanic", where the captain chose a more dangerous route through iceberg infested waters. If it is true, "Costa Concordia" and several lives has been lost because of a master willfully choosing to take the vessel dangerously close to shore to greet someone and/or just show off, and then ending up running her into the rocks at high speed. If it is true, the sheer recklessness and stupidity is mind-boggling.

I read somewhere that a retired Commodore Captain of Costa lives on the Island and is trying to promote Tourism to the island,could that be a reason for the 'Sail by' . . .the video of the August 'Sail By' looks pretty impressive but 'Crazy'

I hear the ship is slipping further underwater. News conference held In genoa by owners of costa cruises. The say the ship wil remain were it isAnd is defending the safety of there vessels and send apologies to all onboard.

As for refloating her, this is going to be interesting. At least they can mend the hole, which is fortuitously above water! They will have to take the large rock out first.Then there must be hundreds of holes to seal in the deck which would normally be above water level.She is a bit big to parbuckle, and what would they tie the lines to on the offshore side. Lots of blxxxy big anchors? We have yet to hear the paranoid cries of fouling of the environment and wildlife with hundreds of tons of fuel and lubricating oil, they will probably start tomorrow. What odds her being broken up on the spot?I watch with fascination.Holedriller

Already started with the press here. Still searching for survivors and the lead concern on the news item was the amount of fuel that could spill from the ship.

Costa Cruises CEO: "He [the captain] decided to change the course of the ship"The captain of a cruise ship that ran aground off Italy made an "unapproved, unauthorised" deviation in course, the liner's owners say.

Costa Cruises boss Pier Luigi Foschi accused Capt Francesco Schettino of sailing too close to a nearby island in order to show the ship to locals.

The captain says the rocks the ship hit were not on his chart.

Six people were killed and 16 are still missing after the Costa Concordia's hull was torn open on Friday.

Rescue crews restarted the search for survivors on Monday afternoon, three hours after work had been suspended because bad weather had caused the ship to move.

At an emotional news conference in Genoa, Mr Foschi fought back tears as he apologised for the accident.

"The company will be close to the captain and will provide him with all the necessary assistance, but we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," he said.

"This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a manoeuvre by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorised and unknown to Costa.

"He wanted to show the ship, to [go] nearby this island of Giglio, so he decided to change the course of the ship to go closer to the island."

He said Costa's ships have their routes programmed and alarms sound when they go off course.

Some of the passengers on board the ship described hearing a horrendous noise as the ship struck rocks at about 21:30 (20:30 GMT) on Friday.

There were scenes of panic as alarms sounded soon after and the ship began to list. Capt Schettino steered the vessel closer to land to where it now lies on its side just metres off Giglio island.

Some of the passengers and crew were forced to swim for land as the angle of the ship made boarding life boats impossible.

The 4,200 passengers and crew on board had not conducted an emergency drill after leaving on its cruise several hours earlier.

Oil spill fears

Rescue crews found a sixth body, that of a male passenger, early on Monday.

The BBC's Matthew Price says the ship has visibly sunk lower in the water during the course of the day.

He says divers have told him that it is dark and difficult to see inside the ship, and that it is disorientating swimming along corridors that have been turned on their side.

Environment Minister Corrado Clini said there was an extremely high risk of a damaging spill of fuel from the ship's tanks.

"The vessel has reservoirs full of fuel, it is a heavy diesel which could sink down to the seabed, that would be a disaster," he told La Stampa newspaper.

"As soon as possible, the fuel will be removed from the vessel. But we have to take into account the precarious state of the ship."

Mr Foschi said so far there were no signs of any leakage. He said 2,300 tonnes of fuel oil were contained in 17 double-hulled tanks and more oil was in another four reservoirs.

Capt Schettino, 52, has worked for Costa Cruises for 11 years. The company said he joined the firm in 2002 as an official in charge of security.

He was made captain in 2006, after serving as second-in-command.

Like all captains in the fleet he took part in a continuous programme of training and passed all the required checks, Costa Cruises said.

Capt Schettino has denied any wrongdoing, saying the rocks his ship hit were not marked on his nautical chart.

"We should have had deep water beneath us," he told Italian TV. "We were about 300m (1,000ft) from the rocks more or less. We shouldn't have hit anything."

He also denied claims by prosecutors that he left the Costa Concordia before evacuation was complete. "We were the last to leave the ship," Capt Schettino said.

Friends working for Carnival Cruise Line as Senior Officers and Arison counsellors are reporting me that nobody knows how to refloat her and move away, somebody is hopeing that Concordia will slip and sink definetely! CCL stocks went down 23% in London, tomorrow they will see what will happen in NYSE and probably 5 sisterships + 2 still to be delivered will be transferred to Carnival Cruise Line and reflagged in Panama. New names under decision!

Watched the interview with the captain on TV yesterday with interest, not speaking Italian had to rely on the translation. He is supposed to have said the ship moved sideways to hit the rock. Strange. Could it be that a panic change of course to starboard swung the stern in to the rocks? Also the shape of the hole looks as if it gets deeper as it goes aft, implying the ship had to stop to extricate itself. Then it carried on, turned hard to port when he realised the ship was doomed and had to be beached, and ended up where it is. But why has it sunk listing to starboard? Is there another, bigger, hole on that side?One thing is certain, it would have been a tight fit in the Port of Giglio if he had made it!Holedriller

Friends working for Carnival Cruise Line as Senior Officers and Arison counsellors are reporting me that nobody knows how to refloat her and move away, somebody is hopeing that Concordia will slip and sink definetely! CCL stocks went down 23% in London, tomorrow they will see what will happen in NYSE and probably 5 sisterships + 2 still to be delivered will be transferred to Carnival Cruise Line and reflagged in Panama. New names under decision!

This accident reminds me the one happened on 1971 to the SS ANTILLES wrecked off Mustique, Grenadines, in 1971. She caught fire, but hopefully passengers and crew were rescued. I read some time ago that the vessel also passed very close to the shore of this tiny island (nobody knows why, but, in fact, there are nice villas and is a common destination for famous people) and hit the rocks with her keel remaining there forever.

The evidence that she was doing hard to starboard when she grounded is that the stab-fin is intact, and that the damage is starting quite far aft and getting deeper further aft.

If you stand at the bridge wing of a ship and look aft when she is starting a hard turn, you will see that it is the aft that does all the turning at first, going sideways before the bow picks up.

Imagine the master's feeling after it happened: “Oh s***, I just ran a USD 600 million cruise ship onto the rocks at high speed. I did it for no good reason, and it is sinking beneath my feet with 4.000 people onboard.”

Off course the captain has the fault of this desaster of the "Costa Concordia".He made several big mistakes. But after the vessel hit the rock "Le Scole" in the south of the little port he did a good job to bring the vessel back to the other rock north of the little port of Giglio,which is to small for a vessel of this size.If the vessel would capsize in open sea we would see a lot more dead people.The question is,if he did this for purpose to ground the ship on the northerly rock close to the harbour entrance.The vessel probably capsized due to free surfaces from the incoming water.What i don't understand is the AIS track on Marine Traffic.According to this track the vessel never could hit a rock.All people can be happy to come safe ashore,except the dead or the missing people,because the weather was good and the port very close.

Friends working for Carnival Cruise Line as Senior Officers and Arison counsellors are reporting me that nobody knows how to refloat her and move away, somebody is hopeing that Concordia will slip and sink definetely! CCL stocks went down 23% in London, tomorrow they will see what will happen in NYSE and probably 5 sisterships + 2 still to be delivered will be transferred to Carnival Cruise Line and reflagged in Panama. New names under decision!

Why would the sister ships + 2 on order be transferred to CCL?

My guess would be that no-one is going to want to cruise with Costa Cruises any more. The name change will be just like when Townsend Thoresen rebranded to P&O so that the active business would not be associated with the disaster